UTAS

Stress a key factor in Alzheimer’s deterioration

High stress may be a major contributor to the development of
Alzheimer’s disease, a recent University of Tasmania study has shown.

A team of researchers from the Faculty of Health’s Wicking Dementia Research and Education
Centre has been studying the relationship between elevated stress hormones
and the development of amyloid plaques - one of the earliest indicators in the
brain of Alzheimer’s disease.

The study, published in the Scientific
Reports journal, found that mice which had Alzheimer’s disease for 12
months, showed damage to a part of the brain which regulates stress, as well as
substantially higher amounts of stress hormones.

It also showed that introducing the mice to a novel environment
resulted in the production of even higher levels of stress hormones as well as
more amyloid plaque in the brain.

Wicking Centre PhD student Kimberley
Stuart said the study suggested that high levels of stress may be an
accelerant in Alzheimer’s disease.

“These results indicate that early brain changes in Alzheimer’s
disease are associated with an abnormal stress response, and that elevated
stress hormones are linked with more extreme changes in the brain,” she said.

“This ‘vicious cycle’ between stress and amyloid plaques may
cause what would typically be a non-noxious environment to become stressful and
push the disease along.”

Wicking Centre Co-director Professor James Vickers said the
study findings may be integral to the search for preventions for dementia,
which can be caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

“With its increasing prevalence across the globe, dementia
is now the second major cause of death in Australia,” he said.

“While we don’t know what may cause the sequence of brain
changes that lead to dementia, it is increasingly clear that there are environmental
and lifestyle risk factors that contribute towards risk of dementia as we get
older.

“If regulation of the stress response is a key determinant
of risk of Alzheimer’s disease, then interventions based on reducing stress
could represent a major preventative strategy, and may also slow the disease
process.”

Professor Vickers said the findings also supported the need
to minimise the potential influence of stressful environments and situations,
on people already living with dementia.